June was another interesting month for markets around the world as a number of important events transpired over the past few weeks. The Federal Reserve meeting came and went without much of a hitch as Bernanke called for the end of QE at the end of the month but suggested that the economy was still too weak to consider raising rates any time soon. While this was undoubtedly an important event, investors focused in on the euro zone and the ongoing debt crisis rocking many of the peripheral members. The focus was especially on Greece, as Athens debated on the merits of another round of austerity measures before voting them in by a slim five vote margin in the final days of June. This helped to ease investor concerns heading into the second half of the year, allowing the S&P 500 to gain back much of the losses that it experienced in the first half of the month, but nevertheless finished down just under 2.2% for the period.

The month also kept up the impressive pace that we have seen for new fund launches; more than 40 new ETFs have been launched since the start of June. This exceeds May’s 39 launches and ties April’s total, meaning that over 120 new products have hit the market in the past 90 days. [click to continue…]

Following a year that saw some of the worst performances in recent memory, many asset classes have bounced back in 2009. But some have performed better than others, and as the year draws to a close we take a look at some of the best-performing ETFs. The year’s top gainers include a few of the largest and most-heavily traded funds, but the majority of those that made the list are lesser known ETFs likely off the radar of many ETF investors. [click to continue…]

Even the most vocal supporters of passive management and indexing have to admit that certain investor track records are far too stellar to attribute entirely to luck. While I’ve frequently disparaged the concept of active investing, I’m still eager to hear what trends legendary investors are following. The Wall Street Journal’s Gregory Zuckerman recently compiled some […]